Man confesses to murdering sister to 'cleanse family honour'

AMMAN — The criminal court prosecutor on Wednesday charged a 27-year-old construction worker with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister in one of the northern governorates late Tuesday night, official sources said.

The 24-year-old victim was reportedly strangled to death by her brother at her family’s home “two days after delivering a baby boy out of wedlock”, a senior judicial source said.

The suspect then took the baby and headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in to police claiming that “he had killed his sibling to cleanse his family’s honour,” the official told The Jordan Times.

“The suspect also handed officers on duty the baby and informed them that it was the result of an illegitimate affair,” the source added.

In his initial confessions before Criminal Court Prosecutor Qahtan Qawaqzeh, the suspect claimed that he was visiting his family, and they informed him that his sister had an appendectomy, he said. 

The victim had been staying at her family’s home for the past two years after being accused by her husband of adultery and delivering a baby girl out of wedlock, the senior source explained.

When the suspect went to check on her in her room, “he saw his sister sleeping with a newborn baby next to her.”

“The suspect asked her about the baby and she informed him that it was the result of an illegitimate affair so he closed the door and without arguing with her strangled her to death,” the source added.

The suspect told Qawaqzeh that the reason “he did not kill his sister when she had delivered a baby girl out of wedlock almost a year ago was because his father asked him not interfere and that he should be merciful.”

Head of the Northern National Institute of Forensic Medicine Pathologist Ali Shotar examined the body and concluded that the victim died of “manual strangulation”, a medical source told The Jordan Times.

The mother of four children, including the “two out of wedlock, is survived by her parents, five brothers and two sisters”, according to the judicial source.

Qawaqzeh ordered the suspect's detention at a correctional and rehabilitation centre for 15 days pending further investigation into the case, the judicial source added.

The two-day-old baby was sent to a specialised centre run by the Ministry of Social Development, he said.